The timeline for acceptance of hypnotherapy as a valid medical treatment has varied greatly among American professional organizations. In 1995, the renowned National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Technology Assessment Conference published a statement entitled Integration of Behavioral and Relaxation Approaches Into the Treatment of Chronic Pain and Insomnia. A 12-member panel of professionals in the medical and psychological fields reviewed existing medical literature. They concluded that many “well-defined behavioral and relaxation interventions” can be effective for treatment of insomnia and chronic pain, and scientific evidence supports the use of a variety of relaxation techniques for the treatment of pain. They also concluded that “strong evidence” exists for “the use of hypnosis in alleviating pain associated with cancer” and evidence also exists for the usefulness of hypnosis in treating pain from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), temporomandibular disorder (TMJ), headaches, and other chronic pain. In fact, they found that the existing research suggested that hypnosis may be superior to the more widely-accepted cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in relieving pain from oral mucositis.
The NIH statement also acknowledged that the mode by which hypnosis relieves pain is not fully known but that hypnotherapy has been thought to “block pain from entering consciousness by activating the frontal-limbic attention system to inhibit pain impulse transmission from thalamic to cortical structures.” This 1995 statement made it clear that the existing research supported the usefulness of ongoing future research and the use of hypnosis as a safe and potentially helpful treatment for a variety of pain conditions.
Today the website of NIH acknowledges the legitimacy and mainstream nature of hypnotherapy by listing it in its directory of therapies and defining it as having been “studied for a number of conditions, including state anxiety (e.g., before medical procedures or surgeries), headaches, smoking cessation, pain control, hot flashes in breast cancer survivors, and irritable bowel syndrome.” It provides links to research into hypnotherapy and to hypnotherapy clinical trials for patients to get involved in.
Source:
http://www.umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/treatment/hypnotherapy (link no longer works as of 10/5/18)
https://consensus.nih.gov/1995/1995BehaviorRelaxPainInsomniata017html.htm
Melvin S. Marsh is a certified hypnotherapist serving Atlanta GA, Aiken SC, Augusta GA, Blairsville GA, and Cary NC. He performs hypnotherapy appointments both in person and worldwide virtually. He can be reached at www.afterhourshypnotherapy.com .
